


echoing street signs

by potstickermaster



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 06:55:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15189260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potstickermaster/pseuds/potstickermaster
Summary: "It's so beautiful here," she says.ORsong fic forrecessional by vienna teng





	echoing street signs

**Author's Note:**

> a rewrite of an old fic

Lena's flight gets delayed but somehow, she does not get as pissed as everyone else. It might be the exhaustion in her eyes. She stays on the waiting area, hands on her lap as she sits patiently, peacefully watching planes land and fly through the huge glass by the boarding gate. She never really liked them; she hated flying, after all, but she appreciated the math and the science behind the planes' calculated flight. The safest way to travel, she firmly believed, but some fears just take root and never leave.

A nearby plane starts to move and in her fascination, perhaps her boredom, too, or her exhaustion, her feet move on their own, walking her to the glass. Her eyes are on the plane’s towering build as it moves. It must be weird, to be captivated like this. 

“It’s so beautiful here,” she says, and the familiar voice stops Lena's breathing. She hasn’t heard that voice in almost four, five years, and She wonders briefly if she is dreaming. It must be her exhaustion causing delusions. She tries to breathe, once or twice, before she slowly turns her head to the side where the voice came from.

Her heart stops at the sight of her.

Lena wonders if it  _is_  her. Her hair is darker than her previous golden locks but it still flows beautifully down her shoulder, wavy tresses that look just as soft as the last day Lena remembers of her _._  She wears her usual ensemble of a flannel shirt tucked in dark slacks, cardigan topping it off, but her glasses are different from the one she wore years ago. 

She shakes her head as if she couldn’t believe she just talked to a stranger, or perhaps to herself or to her reflection in public, and she turns her head. Lena sees her visibly tense as her all-too-familiar eyes land on green ones and Lena freezes, too. She hasn't seen that blue gaze in almost four, five years, and she wonders, yet again, if she is dreaming or if this is some delusion brought about by the exhaustion in her bones. She tries to breath again, once, twice, but she can’t; not with  _her_ in front of her in the flesh.

Lena is sure now that it was _her._ Everything else could change; her hair or her glasses or the way she dresses or her affinity for accessories but Lena could recognize those eyes anywhere, even after an eternity of not seeing them in reality, because she has always seen them in her dreams.

And because it is quite hard to forget the eyes of the only person she has ever loved—the only person she will ever love.

The ringing of the airport tune breaks the reverie the two of them are in and Lena breaks eye contact as well. She clenches her fists on her sides to anchor herself to sanity and _she_ slides her hands into the pockets of her pants. Lena doesn’t know if she should say something, or if she should say _anything_ at all, but _she_ decides for Lena and she lets her.

“Hey,” she says, and there was a small smile on her face, warm like so many years before. Her smile wasn’t forced; it was of genuine pleasant surprise—Lena knows, because she has mastered all her expressions all those years ago and not even an eternity apart from Kara Danvers can make Lena forget.

“Hey,” she murmurs back. “It’s—It’s been a long time. Never thought I’d find you here.” The words spill before she can stop them and she bites her lip shyly, but Kara just chuckles. It’s music to Lena's ears, music she hasn't heard in so long, and there is an ache that resurfaces in her chest that makes Lena want to fall down to her knees to beg Kara to let her hear the majestic sound once more. Lena has missed that sound, so much so, and it makes her heart beat again, a racing, pounding this time, but she lets it, for the first time.

She missed her.

“Yeah. Long time,” Kara echoes and tilts her head ever so slightly. “Paris is beautiful,” she comments, shrugging her shoulder as alternative because she can’t wave her hands with them stuck on her pockets. Lena smiles and nods.

“It is. I hope you enjoyed it,” she says.

She nods and looks away. “I did,” she whispers, before looking back at Lena. Everything else mutes down as those pair of eyes look at her, like  _really_ look at her. Kara hasn’t seen Lena in just as long, and she studies the raven-haired woman with the same concentration and focus she has when she reads through her article sources or when she is puzzling over her latest draft.

Lena knows, because she has seen them all those years ago.

She wants to move, squirm away from Kara's piercing gaze, but she can’t. She can’t or _won’t_ ; it didn’t matter. She let her gaze break down the walls she has built in years so she could see Lena as _her_ , the same person she had loved all those years ago.

Lena knows she should move, step away, stop Kara from looking at her like she is trying to read her, or maybe look into her soul, but she _can't_. There is a reason, there are  _reasons,_ but somehow Lena can’t find them as she gets lost in the ocean of Kara's eyes, the most comforting shades of blue like the the freedom of the sky she can no longer enjoy, and like many years before Lena is gone and done for.

“It’s beautiful here,” she says again, softer this time, as she drags her eyes away. Lena smiles to herself. It seems Kara hasn’t changed that much.

Somehow, Lena finds the courage to invite Kara for coffee, after a few minutes of silence, and she agrees. They stand together in the line, not talking, until it was Lena's turn to order. She orders the same thing for herself, the same one she has always had, and she is about to say Kara's order but she consciously stops herself and turns to the blonde. Her expression is blank and she orders black coffee, no sugar, and Lena looks at her with confusion in her eyes until it dawns on her that a lot can change in four, five years.

They return to the waiting area and they sit side by side. Lena asks her when Kara got her new glasses, and the blonde fiddles with them before she answers four, five years ago. Lena's heart and breathing stops and she doesn't say anything back. She sits quietly, watching the planes come and go, the people walk by and meet and part and cry and kiss and fall in and out of love—like the two of them had all, those years ago.

Seconds become minutes and they fly by.

Lena feels a weight on her shoulder and she drags her gaze from where she watches the planes to beside her. She finds Kara asleep, her head on Lena's shoulder, her face ever so peaceful and beautiful it makes her heart clench painfully in her chest. She is taken back four, five years ago, in their last days, where Kara fell asleep just like this while they watched her favorite movies on that cozy couch in Kara's apartment, after their every fight. Her lips are quirked up into a tiny smile and Lena finds it in herself to smile as well.

She looks happy, and Lena is happy for her.

Green eyes map Kara's face, memorizing her, or perhaps relearning the curves of her features and the constellations across her skin, until Lena's eyes catch a glint on her left hand. Her heart stops at the sight of a beautiful princess-cut diamond ring, one Lena would’ve given her if the two of them had survived the storm that ruined their relationship four, five years ago. Lena looks away from the ring on Kara's finger and her face and all that is her being and she closes her eyes, bites her lip hard enough for bitter blood to flood her mouth, hoping it is enough to drown the images of Kara in a beautiful white dress, vowing forever to another person, another who is  _not Lena ._

But she looks happy and Lena is happy for her.

Lena lets her sleep on her shoulder, the familiar little sounds Kara makes as she dreams killing her and giving her life over and over again. Lena knows she should move, save herself from the pain, but she can’t find the strength to, not with Kara pressed so close to her like this, like all those nights four, five years ago. Lena wants to take Kara's hand and lace it with hers, but she is another’s now and it _hurts_ but she looks happy and Lena is happy for her.

Lena knows she is happy, because there are laughter lines on her face and the spark in her eyes. She has seen them before, after all, four, five years ago. Lena caused them before. But even if she wasn't not the cause of that happiness now, Lena is just happy that Kara is, because if there is anyone who deserved all the happiness in the world, it's Kara Danvers.

An announcement echoes through the waiting area and Kara rouses from her sleep. It’s her flight, she mumbles, and she gets up with haste and brings her bags that rest beside her feet. She smiles at Lena genuinely and apologizes for falling asleep; she says she had grown immune to coffee that it calms her down to dreams and Lena just smiles and nods.

A lot can change in four, five years, it seems.

Lena doesn’t know if she should hug Kara goodbye or lean in to kiss her forehead or her cheeks or her lips or hold her and never let go because she doesn’t want to, not now when she has found her again after four, five years, but Kara decides for her and Lena lets her.

“Well anyway,” she says, a small smile on her face as she swings her bag on her shoulder, a small distance between the two of them but distance nonetheless. Lena knows that smile; she has seen Kara use it on her colleagues years ago—a professional expression because anything else would seem too personal—and Lena's heart breaks at the thought that a colleague is all she is reduced to now. But she smiles anyway, the same sad smile she wore four, five years ago, when the two of them parted for the last time.

Everything is new and old and familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, and Lena had to clench her fists hard on her lap in order for her not to fall to her knees and beg Kara to stay, or beg her to run away with her; to catch a flight on the metal birds of calculated flight and let them control their escape back to four, five years ago, when Kara was happy and Lena was, too.

“I’ll see you around,” Kara says with a polite nod.

Lena nods back and watches the blonde turn on her heel. She watches her walk away, taking all her light with her. Somehow, Lena knows those words meant nothing, because she is sure she won’t ever see Kara again—life and people wouldn’t let them meet again—but Lena lets herself hope.


End file.
